A law blog addressing the foci of 3 intrepid law geeks, specializing in their respective fields of knowledge management, internet marketing and library sciences, melding together to form the Dynamic Trio.

Pages

4/1/09

Breaking News: All 800 attorneys and 200 Paralegals at an undisclosed BigLaw firm are to receive Kindle 2's. The Kindles will all come preloaded with the entire National Reporter Sets, US Code, CFR and Federal Register.

"It just makes more sense to enable our attorneys with a portable library at their fingertips" says the firm's press spokesman. "We're taking out most of the compact shelving in the firm's library and converting that space into trial prep rooms. So, it is a win-win for the attorneys."

When asked if attorneys can also download the latest novels to the Kindle, the firm's spokes person merely shrugged and said that the attorneys would have to use their discretion on what would be appropriate. On follow-up, the spokes person said that the "Twilight" series was requested by a group of attorneys as standard issue on Kindles, but the request was rejected by the Kindle committee.

Now armed with Whisper-Sync, the Kindles will have up-to-date case law and statutes, and the attorneys can also download the new iPhone Kindle App so they can pick up the case right where they left off.

One of the associates from the firm commented that he was going to buy the Kindle belt holster so that he could have ready access to his new Kindle whenever he needed it. "Although it looks a little bulky under my suit jacket, it is actually quite comfortable. Plus, my girlfriend thinks I look really sexy with the bulge on my hip."

The firm's spokesman also discussed the affects on staffing. "We're excited about is that all of the attorney's journals are going to be sent to their Kindles, rather than routed to them in inter-office mail. We're hoping this means we can layoff some of our mail room staff and cover the costs of the Kindles through staff reductions."

The firm is hoping that the IT staff can figure out a way to synchronize email to the Kindle by using the Kindles cell wifi service. "This could save the firm millions in BlackBerry subscription if we could just piggy-back onto the free service that comes with the Kindle. It could also mean reducing IT staffing if everything works out. At this point, it doesn't look like it is possible, but we have another committee working on that issue."

It will be interesting to see how this Kindle experiment works in a large law firm setting. The firm is hoping that its initial investment of $370,000 for new Kindle 2's, plus the subscription costs for each unit will end up saving them millions in print and labor costs.

4
comments:

A shame this is an April Fools joke-if things like the National Reporter Sets, US Code, CFR, caselaw, statutes and the like were actually available on Kindles, it would be a great alternative to in-firm law libraries.

Plenty of solos are already using mini-laptops with Westlaw or Lexis, so your post isn't exactly in the realm of science-fiction.

The folks over at Jones McClure publishing here in Houston are working on an XML format that will help load its publications into multiple electronic formats (possibly even Kindle). They are worried that the speed of the Kindle, and the search capabilities will limit the function of the publications in the Kindle format.

I say, test that theory out on a few folks and see if that is really the case.